Researchers discovered a surprising trait shared by the worst bosses

What's worse than coming into the office and knowing you'll be
berated by your manager for your recent performance?

Showing up and not knowing how your manager will treat you.

That's according to a
new study, published in The Academy of Management journal and
highlighted on
The Washington Post, which found that
unpredictability in managers is even more
deleterious to employees' health and well-being than consistent
unfairness.

To test this phenomenon, researchers recruited about 100
employees in different industries to fill out daily surveys over
the course of three weeks. Questions centered on employees'
perceptions of their managers' fairness and how they felt about
work.

As it turns out, employees who perceived their manager as fair
sometimes and unfair other times were more stressed, more
emotionally exhausted, and less satisfied at work than employees
who felt they were always treated unfairly.

As business psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic writes in
The
Harvard Business Review, the best managers tend to be the
most reliable. Contrary to popular belief, bosses who are
emotionally volatile (think Steve Jobs) generally aren't so
successful.

Sometimes, however, even if you have a track record of fairness,
you have to make a decision that seems unfair. Fadel Matta, the
study's lead author, told The Washington Post that in these
cases, you should at least try to tell your employees in advance
what's going to happen.

It will be less stressful for the team, and will likely make you
look better as a boss, too.